Last Saturday I told my very close friend Amber that I felt a little hurt that I didn't "feel" my Mother in Law near me since she died in July. Now before you click away, please understand even though I'm from California I'm not a freaky kind of mystical weirdo. (But if you are a freaky kind of mystical weirdo I can totally accept that. Not that you need my acceptance - good Lord this is complicated.) What I meant was, when my Dad died and I missed him unbearably he would come to me in dreams. One of the dreams I remember most vividly was shortly after he passed, when I was still crying myself to sleep every night, and in the dream I was telling him how lonely I was without him and he looked at me and said "Don't you think I'm lonely too". It made sense to me. I believe that he was reunited with his parents, his brother, his beloved grandmother, and the rest of the loved ones he lost once he passed. But I know he would have missed me and my brothers no matter how many loving souls were there for him. Its been 24 years since my dad died but his was the only death of someone truly close to me that I've experienced.
So I expected my Mother in Law to visit. To maybe tell me to watch out for the boys and for PC. Something. And my feelings were a little bit hurt that she didn't. Okay. Now I'm over it. She ishaunting manifesting through my desktop computer. Not in a bad way. My desktop always boots up slowly. The clue that it is finally finished is when the weatherbug and AIM pop up. I don't use AIM but my older sons do. It pops up every day and expects my oldest son, R., to log in. I close the login screen and thats it. Every day. Until now. Now it pops up with Linda's buddy list. I'm sure she logged in to AIM when she was staying at my house after the Pumpkin was born but I certainly didn't change the last person to log in. I don't mind. I find it weirdly comforting. Yesterday though was creepy. In addition to her buddy list my computer froze on a picture of her husband. Now although the picture does reside somewhere in the My Pictures folder I have never deliberately accessed it - at least until I decided to show YOU. 
It is hideous. I see it flash by occasionally when the screen saver is on and the slideshow of all my pictures plays. But that is the screen saver. There should never be a picture along with the regular opening stuff. She only recently passed maybe she only has enough energy to cause an electrical disturbance rather than a dream visit. I don't know the rules. Before you rush to judgment (see note above re freaky mystical weirdo - NOT) I can see I'm going to have to explain similar things that have happened to Me or to People I Actually Know. Here goes:
Other than the aforementioned dreams of Dad, my personal experience with "spiritual" weirdness is this: My oldest son R was conceived when a good friend of mine and I had a brief sexual encounter. It wasn't the first time, we were old friends. Nonetheless once he learned of my pregnancy - through a friend - he never spoke to me again (R is 21 years old). This occurred in the same year that my dad died, shortly after my brother joined the Army, when I was living alone in the house where only recently I had lived with my family.... So, I'm pregnant and I'm alone. I'm actually good with that because in my mind I already had R and therefore was no longer alone - I was in fact a walking family. I happen to be one of those people who is terrified of being alone in a house. I imagine sounds and creatures and serial killers under the beds and REALLY have a hard time being alone in a house. So, asleep in my pitiful twin bed I roll over one night and glance around the room for intruders (as I did, in those days, 20 or 30 times a night) and I see, hovering over me, a face. At first, I was completely petrified given that someone in the house is what I was so afraid of. After a few minutes though, I realized that this "person" was not whole - at least not standing at my bedside - only sort of hovering over me. And, more importantly, that this "person" meant me no harm. It was an elderly lady that I didn't recognize. When trying to reason it out I decided it must be my dad's Granny, whom I'd never met, but who, I reasoned, had been gone long enough to "check on me" for him. Like I said - I don't know the rules. We watched each other for a while. I had a clear sense of being "measured up" and then I went back to sleep. The next day when visiting a friend I learned that R's biological father's mother died that night. I think she was checking out her future grandchild's mother. Weird. It didn't change anything. R's NF (not a father?) never did consent to see us again. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
My only other "direct" encounter: My cousin Barb's (I think she's my second cousin - she and my dad were first cousins) husband died a couple of years before I moved away from California. After he passed, the remote control car that was his - and was not permitted to be touched by his innumerable grandsons - kept going on when nobody was manning the controls. Replacing the batteries didn't help. Removing the batteries didn't help. My cousin finally gave it to one of her sons so he would get it out of her house because it creeped her out. A lot. In the drawer of her dresser it would start up at night. Yuck.
To get back to Linda (my Mother in Law), I tried to think what she might be telling me, with her list of friends and her creepy husband's pciture, if anything. Maybe she was just trying not to hurt my feelings. Maybe dreams are too hard. Maybe she knows that PC and the boys/men are fine. I decided (in what may have been a phenomenal example of thinking what you want to think) that she wanted me to try to use my trusty, albeit rusty, lawyer skills to persuade her husband to drop the lawsuit he has filed against my sister in law. (Note to readers: You thought I gave a little TMI but you were wrong....) So I wrote him a letter. Not my best effort, I was mostly putting in words the actions I want to take - shake him until his teeth rattle and he gets a clue.
Anyway, mission completed, when I got home tonight there was nothing peculiar frozen on my screen. Its just my lame old desktop computer in the bedroom (the Pumpkin got the office when he was mysteriously conceived). I don't want her to give up. I don't want her to leave me. I miss her so much.... I love you Linda.
So I expected my Mother in Law to visit. To maybe tell me to watch out for the boys and for PC. Something. And my feelings were a little bit hurt that she didn't. Okay. Now I'm over it. She is
It is hideous. I see it flash by occasionally when the screen saver is on and the slideshow of all my pictures plays. But that is the screen saver. There should never be a picture along with the regular opening stuff. She only recently passed maybe she only has enough energy to cause an electrical disturbance rather than a dream visit. I don't know the rules. Before you rush to judgment (see note above re freaky mystical weirdo - NOT) I can see I'm going to have to explain similar things that have happened to Me or to People I Actually Know. Here goes:Other than the aforementioned dreams of Dad, my personal experience with "spiritual" weirdness is this: My oldest son R was conceived when a good friend of mine and I had a brief sexual encounter. It wasn't the first time, we were old friends. Nonetheless once he learned of my pregnancy - through a friend - he never spoke to me again (R is 21 years old). This occurred in the same year that my dad died, shortly after my brother joined the Army, when I was living alone in the house where only recently I had lived with my family.... So, I'm pregnant and I'm alone. I'm actually good with that because in my mind I already had R and therefore was no longer alone - I was in fact a walking family. I happen to be one of those people who is terrified of being alone in a house. I imagine sounds and creatures and serial killers under the beds and REALLY have a hard time being alone in a house. So, asleep in my pitiful twin bed I roll over one night and glance around the room for intruders (as I did, in those days, 20 or 30 times a night) and I see, hovering over me, a face. At first, I was completely petrified given that someone in the house is what I was so afraid of. After a few minutes though, I realized that this "person" was not whole - at least not standing at my bedside - only sort of hovering over me. And, more importantly, that this "person" meant me no harm. It was an elderly lady that I didn't recognize. When trying to reason it out I decided it must be my dad's Granny, whom I'd never met, but who, I reasoned, had been gone long enough to "check on me" for him. Like I said - I don't know the rules. We watched each other for a while. I had a clear sense of being "measured up" and then I went back to sleep. The next day when visiting a friend I learned that R's biological father's mother died that night. I think she was checking out her future grandchild's mother. Weird. It didn't change anything. R's NF (not a father?) never did consent to see us again. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
My only other "direct" encounter: My cousin Barb's (I think she's my second cousin - she and my dad were first cousins) husband died a couple of years before I moved away from California. After he passed, the remote control car that was his - and was not permitted to be touched by his innumerable grandsons - kept going on when nobody was manning the controls. Replacing the batteries didn't help. Removing the batteries didn't help. My cousin finally gave it to one of her sons so he would get it out of her house because it creeped her out. A lot. In the drawer of her dresser it would start up at night. Yuck.
To get back to Linda (my Mother in Law), I tried to think what she might be telling me, with her list of friends and her creepy husband's pciture, if anything. Maybe she was just trying not to hurt my feelings. Maybe dreams are too hard. Maybe she knows that PC and the boys/men are fine. I decided (in what may have been a phenomenal example of thinking what you want to think) that she wanted me to try to use my trusty, albeit rusty, lawyer skills to persuade her husband to drop the lawsuit he has filed against my sister in law. (Note to readers: You thought I gave a little TMI but you were wrong....) So I wrote him a letter. Not my best effort, I was mostly putting in words the actions I want to take - shake him until his teeth rattle and he gets a clue.
Anyway, mission completed, when I got home tonight there was nothing peculiar frozen on my screen. Its just my lame old desktop computer in the bedroom (the Pumpkin got the office when he was mysteriously conceived). I don't want her to give up. I don't want her to leave me. I miss her so much.... I love you Linda.
2 comments:
Aww, sweetie. ((HUGS))
Now stop drinking in the mornings! LOL!
Seriously though, have I ever told you about the shoe incident in my house?
The thought of being haunted by that hideous picture is probably the funniest thing I've read all day.
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